COMMENT BY
Dan from Titusville, FL
COMMENT ABOUT PLACE
Titusville, FL
COMMENT
Orlando, not really for me.
Long time Central Floridian.
Orlando in some ways has gotten better, and some ways it has gotten worse. It just keeps getting hotter every year here. Only 3 comfortable months: January, Feb, March, and sometimes April. Otherwise you are looking at near 90F days, no seasons. My brains literally boil here. If that's your thing, have at it.
During those 3 months however, the weather can be beautiful. Florida is excellent if you practice year round sports such as tennis or golf. I am a big tennis player, and it can be too hot at times, but you'll have more days out playing here than way up north.
The traffic in orlando is not too bad compared to other cities like Atlanta and DC. It usually always flows if you know how to stay away from areas like west orlando I-4. There are a lot of regular people that live in Orlando....in other words, to me Orlando is not a "trendy" city. Real estate is still somewhat reasonable here. It's not like Seattle, Boise, Denver, where you can't buy a house for under $600k. The city of Orlando is not filled with tech bros or wallstreet bros. It's not a city full of educated people or academics. The bulk of Orlando is a melting pot of regular people mixed with rednecks, and a huge influx of immigrants that come from Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and other South/Central American countries or Island nations. Some of these groups of people do not get along, but overall it is a big mix. A lot of low level service workers, theme park employees that may or may not be out of work, hotel/restaurant/bar employees, and aerospace contract workers.
This is good and bad. I appreciate the fact that there seem to still be "regular" people here, and I've lived in a place with a lot of tech/wallstreet bros, or trend chasers - and it's just annoying. The bad is that there's a lack of food scene and dense excitement to be offered other than the massive tourism blight of west orlando , which is not my scene.
Orlando is not a foodie city. In fact, the food scene in Orlando has been absolute garbage and is just now only slightly getting better. You want James Beard and Michelin award winners, this is not your place. A lot of chains. If you know where to go and what to look for, you can find some nice spots. Winter park, winter garden, some areas around downtown, dr. phillips, lake nona, ect all have decent spots to hang.
Florida guys are generally rough around the edges and less sophisticated - but you can find some educated ones that left the state and came back or whatever. There are also a lot of transplants. Florida women can be similar. Dating scene in Orlando is active but again, lacking educated and sophisticated people. I've found some good looking and genuinely nice women here, just have to really filter out the filth. There's a lot of trash, it's work to find the gems. A fair amount of nice looking transgender people here as well compared with other cities, the LGBT community is pretty decent in Orlando. It use to be nice to find positive multicultural people here coming to work from other countries like Japan, China, Thailand, Germany, France, ect ...but now that's less and less due to COVID and current political climate.
Orlando is a spread out city, and you are constantly driving to get from one point to another. It's not a dense city. This lends itself to being in a place that feels like you have a lot of space to roam, and are not ever "trapped" in the city. But it also can be very inconvenient and draining to have to drive a lot just to get from here or there.
Because it's boiling hot here most of the year, and a melting pot of different clashing immigrants along with rednecks - you have the loud and dumb people that just like to make noise either with their fart can exhausts, huge trucks, blasting stereos, street racing, juvenile and uneducated type behavior. A lot of angry and pissed jungle freaks everywhere all the time. The huge immigrant families that move here stuff like 12 people into one rented matchstick house with zero lot lines, and you'll see a lot of action at times coming from those neighborhoods. The rednecks from the surrounding counties are also pervasive. Some of them are harmless, and then some of them are a little too proud, loud, and dumb as bricks. Same with the immigrants. You got a jungle of trash on both sides.
The "middle" regular and moderate type of people are shrinking in Orlando. You've had a general movement to extremes in social behavior and politics because one voice got louder, and the other countered just as hard. Very few people in the middle anymore, and it's not just Orlando - but I feel everywhere has become divided more than ever and people are choosing sides with very few reasonable types left in the middle road.
Orlando lacks education, educated people, food, arts/performing arts, the trendy and sophisticated scene. I guess it might have it.....but it's far too spread out to sometimes even notice. Just like the people....there's some good ones in there, but a lot of cretins and gremlin type people clouding it all. Stupidity is rampant and growing....not just here, but everywhere.